English 1 (functional English)

Comprehension skills
Reading comprehension is the ability to read text, process it, and understand
its meaning. An individual's ability to comprehend text is influenced by their traits
and skills, one of which is the ability to make inferences.

There are ten basic skills that applied to read comprehensions.

1-Summarizing
2-Sequencing
3-Inferencing
4-Comparing and contrasting
5-Drawing conclusions
6-Self-questioning
7-Problem-solving
8-Relating background knowledge
9-Distinguishing between fact and opinion
10-Finding the main idea, important facts, and supporting details

These skills are particularly important for comprehending what is

generally known as information reading or expository reading.
Summarizing:
Summarizing allows both students and teachers to
monitor comprehension of material. Summarizing helps students understand the
organizational structure of lessons or texts. Summarizing is a skill at which most
adults must be proficient to be successful.

Why use summarizing?

It helps students learn to determine essential ideas and consolidate
important details that support them.
It enables students to focus on key words and phrases of an assigned
text that are worth noting and remembering.
It teaches students how to take a large selection of text and reduce it to
the main points for more concise understanding.

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Why use summarizing?
It helps students learn to determine essential ideas and consolidate
important details that support them.
It enables students to focus on key words and phrases of an assigned
text that are worth noting and remembering.
It teaches students how to take a large selection of text and reduce it to
the main points for more concise understanding.

Sequencing:
Sequencing refers to the identification of the components of a story,
such as the beginning, middle, and end, and also to the ability to retell the events
within a given text in the order in which they occurred. The ability
to sequence events in a text is a key comprehension strategy, especially for
narrative texts.
Why Is It Important?
As students listen to or read text, they are best served if they can
understand the information as it is presented and then recall it at a later point.
Beginning readers and those that have not had much opportunity to work on their
sequencing skills have a tendency to retell a story by starting with the end, since
it is the part that they read or heard most recently. Even more experienced
readers may re-tell a story by focusing primarily on the sections that were most
appealing to them rather than by giving a more complete picture of the events
that occurred. (Fox and Allen, 1983)
Practicing sequencing helps remedy both of these issues and makes this aspect
of reading comprehension second nature. If students are encouraged to identify
the parts of a story, for instance, they will be better able to retell it to someone
else, as it is a more manageable task to think of a story in pieces—the beginning,
middle, and end—rather than try to recall it as one large chunk. Sequencing
activities also provide an opportunity for students to examine text and story
structure, which, in turn, strengthens their writing skills.
Inferencing:
Inference in reading is the ability to understand the meaning of a
passage of text without all the information being spelled out. From context clues
within a passage, the author gives information about plot, characters, setting,
time period and other elements of story by the things he or she infers.
INFERENCE IS ESSENTIAL TO READING COMPREHENSION
Inference is drawing conclusions based on information that has been implied
rather than directly stated and is an essential skill in reading comprehension. We
make inferences every day, both in oral and written communication. Many times
this is so automatic we don't even realize the information wasn't included in the
conversation or text. For example, read the following sentences:

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My wife and I tried to pack light but we made sure not to forget our bathing suits
and sunblock. I wasn't sure if I would get seasick again so I made sure to pack
some medicine for upset stomachs.
You can deduct a great deal of information from these sentences:
 The author is married.
 He and his wife are going on a trip.
 They are going to be on a boat.
 They will be around water.
 They will be going swimming.
 They have gone swimming before.
 The author has gotten seasick on a boat in the past.
This information was not clearly stated in the sentences, but you can use
what was written to deduce or infer, much more than what was said. Most
of the information we get from reading comes from what is implied rather
than direct statements as you can see from the amount of information we
got from "reading between the lines." previously.
Comparing and contrasting:
Definition of Comparing and Contrasting. Comparing and contrasting are
ways of exploring the similarities and differences between two things. 'Compare
and contrast' is often used as a development strategy for essay assignments, but
it's a helpful strategy for any important decisions you have to make.
Drawing conclusions:
Drawing conclusions is using information that is implied or inferred to
make meaning out of what is not clearly stated. Writers give readers hints or
clues that help them read between the lines, since not everything is explicitly
stated or spelled out all the time.
Self questioning:
Self-Questioning is the ongoing process of asking questions before,
during, and after reading that are used by a reader to understand text. The
questions posed are based on clues that are found in the text and are generated
to spark curiosity that focuses the reader's attention on investigating,
understanding, and connecting to the text. A self-questioning strategy is a set of
steps that a student follows to generate, think about, predict, investigate, and
answer questions that satisfy curiosity about what is being read.
Who can benefit from instruction in Self-Questioning Strategies?
Some students can generate questions fairly well. However, as text
becomes more difficult, becomes more abstract, increases in length, is more
inconsiderate, or the student does not have sufficient background knowledge,
comprehension will falter and more deliberate work on self-questioning is
required. Struggling readers may need instruction and practice in surveying text
and generating questions before they read; other students may need instruction
and practice in using self-questioning as they read; others might use self-

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questioning as a way of summarizing or studying. Regardless of when the self-
questioning process is used, the basic components of the strategy are the same.
What are the types of Self-Questioning Strategies that I might teach?
Self-Questioning is used before, during, and after reading text.
However, if students do not know or use self-questioning as an ongoing strategy
during reading, they are likely to have trouble with before and after use of the
strategy. Therefore, a self-questioning strategy for use during reading is
described first in some detail, followed by descriptions of how the strategy is
used before and after reading.

The During Reading Self-Questioning Strategy. This strategy focuses on teaching

the students to use a self-questioning process as they read paragraphs and
sections of text.
The Before Reading Self-Questioning Strategy. This strategy focuses on teaching
students to use the self-questioning process as a way of previewing text before
reading begins and creating a set of guiding questions to check comprehension
during reading.
The After Reading Self-Questioning Strategy. This strategy focuses on teaching
students to generate questions and answer questions after they have read the
text. This strategy is usually used for studying and self-testing information that
should have been gained from the text.
How do you teach the After Reading Self-Questiong Strategy?
Select the After Reading Self Questioning Strategy to teach as a simple
follow-up to instruction in the During Reading Self-Questioning Strategy. To
promote self-questioning after reading larger chunks of materials, Section and
Multi-Section Summarization Strategies may be more appropriate.
Before you start asking students to develop post reading questions, explain to
them the purpose of learning how to use post reading questioning. Focus your
rationale on the idea that revisiting questions readers have asked and generating
questions about what was read help answer the "So what?" question and confirm
what was learned from the author. It also gives a chance to determine if the
reader agrees or not or whether there is a need to know more.
Describe the strategy and make a list of the steps on the overhead or board. Ask
students to write the steps of the strategy and what each step means in their
notes. The critical steps of the strategy that you could describe might include
these steps:
Step 1: Explore the "Look Back" questions:
Looking back, I know...
(Based on what the author has revealed, how has my knowledge has changed?)
Looking back, I think...

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 (Based on what the author has revealed, do I agree?)
Looking back, I question...
(Based on what the author has revealed, what additional questions do you have?)
Looking back, I feel...
(Based on what the author has revealed, what emotions do you feel?)
Looking back, I predict...
(Based on what the author has revealed, what do you think will happen in the
future?)
Step 2: Name a big organizing question.
Based on your answers to the Look Back questions, create one big question that
you think captures the big question for what you have read. Develop a question
you think the author would be most pleased if you could answer.
Step 3: Developing big answer.
Develop an answer to your big organizing question. Develop an answer you think
would get you an "A" on the test for capturing the main idea of this reading.
Problem-solving:
Problem solving requires two distinct types of mental skill, analytical and
creative.
Analytical or logical thinking includes skills such as ordering,
comparing, contrasting, evaluating and selecting. It provides a logical framework
for problem solving and helps to select the best alternative from those available
by narrowing down the range of possibilities (a convergent process).. Analytical
thinking often predominates in solving closed problems, where the many
possible causes have to be identified and analysed to find the real cause.
Creative thinking is a divergent process, using the imagination to
create a large range of ideas for solutions. It requires us to look beyond the
obvious, creating ideas which may, at first, seem unrealistic or have no logical
connection with the problem. There is a large element of creative thinking in
solving open problems.
The creative thinking skills can be divided into several key elements:
 fluency - producing many ideas
 flexibility - producing a broad range of ideas . originality - producing
uncommon ideas
 elaboration - developing ideas.
Effective problem solving requires a controlled mixture of analytical
and creative thinking.
Research has shown that, in general terms, each side or hemisphere
of the brain is specialised to serve one of these groups of skills. The degree of
specialisation of each hemisphere varies from person to person, but it has given
rise to the terms right-brain thinking and left-brain thinking. Left-brain thinking is

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more logical and analytical, and is predominantly verbal. Right-brain thinking is
more holistic and is concerned with feelings and impressionistic relationships.
To be a good problem solver you need to be able to switch from one
group of skills to the other and back again, although this is not always easy.
Traditional education gives far greater encouragement to the development and
use of left-brain thinking. This is reinforced in the way we are required to work,
where emphasis is placed on rational, logical analysis of data in drawing
conclusions.
Some other terms which are often used in discussions of creativity include:
Intuition - the ability to draw conclusions based on impressions and feelings
rather than hard facts. It is a characteristic of right-brain thinking and some
people rely on it more than others.
Incubation - the period between stopping conscious work on a problem and the
time when we become aware of a solution or part solution. People struggling with
problems often suddenly become aware of a solution after a period of incubation,
during which the mind is occupied by other things.
Invention - the creation of new, meaningful ideas or concepts.
Innovation - putting new ideas or concepts to a practical use, as in the
development of a new product or service.
Relating background knowledge:
Call it schema, relevant background knowledge, prior knowledge, or
just plain experience, when students make connections to the text they
are reading, theircomprehension increases. Good readers constantly try to make
sense out of what they read by seeing how it fits with what they already know.
Why is background knowledge so important?
It makes good sense that to comprehend a story or text, readers will
need a threshold of knowledge about the topic. Sometimes we call it domain-
specific knowledge or topical knowledge. Without such knowledge, it becomes
difficult to construct a meaningful mental model of what the text is about.
Consider the following examples.
Background knowledge enables readers to choose between multiple
meanings of words
For example, think about the word operation. If you were to read the word
in a sports article about the Yankees, you might think about Derek Jeter
recovering from his latest baseball injury. If you read the word in a math text, on
the other hand, you'd think about a mathematical process like multiplication or
division. Words have multiple purposes and meanings, and their meanings in
particular instances are cued by the reader's domain knowledge.
Reading and listening require readers to make inferences from text that
rely on background knowledge

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 Even the most immediate oral language exchanges, like “What do you
say?” to a young child who just received some Halloween candy, require some
level of inferencing. From infancy on, oral language comprehension requires
children to actively construct meaning by supplying missing knowledge and
making inferences. This, of course, becomes even more complicated when we
turn to written texts, since it may require students to make inferences based on
limited information in the text itself. In fact, many of our greatest writers engage
readers through their writing to think beyond the text.
Understanding text depends on readers supplying enough of the
unstated premises to make coherent sense of what is being read. But to do this
well, readers need to have a foundation of knowledge about the topic. Otherwise,
as studies have shown, they can get caught on the “seductive details” (Garner,
Gillingham, & White, 1989) of a text—highly interesting and entertaining
information that is only tangentially related to the topic—which can distract the
reader and disrupt the comprehension of text. Background knowledge, in
contrast, acts as a road map for students, allowing them to stay on target despite
the interesting details. This suggests that once print has been decoded into
words, reading comprehension and listening comprehension requires the active
construction of inferences that rely on background knowledge and are implicit in
the text.
Literacy language requires background knowledge:
Second-language learners know for certain that many metaphors,
idioms, and other literary devices are based on background knowledge. For
example, if we say that you “really hit the ball out of the park” after you gave a
presentation to your colleagues, you would quickly understand the compliment.
We know that it can't be taken literally because we know what the saying refers
to. Writings are heavily dependent on metaphors and idioms. Studies (e.g.,
Ortony, Schallert, Reynolds, & Antos, 1978) have shown that idioms are often
processed just as rapidly as literal meanings, indicating that we are constantly
activating background knowledge in comprehension.
Informational text requires background knowledge
Informational text tends to have a greater density of vocabulary and
concepts that are directly related to students' background knowledge (Price,
Bradley, & Smith, 2012). And these demands placed on background knowledge
only accelerate as students progress through the grade levels. Students will be
required to apply previously learned concepts to increasingly complex text. They
must read, discuss, and write about topics that are conceptually more difficult,
and they will need to increasingly draw on intertextual linkages across subject
areas. They'll be required to provide evidence from text, show deep and thorough
understanding of these concepts, and think creatively about applying these
concepts in new ways.
Consequently, in much of the literature in reading, we have focused on
skills associated with comprehension: decoding, vocabulary development,
strategy instruction, and metacognition, among many others. But what we can

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see from this brief summary is that we have given very little instructional time to
a skill that can play an enormous role in comprehending text. We would venture
to guess that students' understanding of text is unlikely to improve unless we
begin to more deliberately teach background knowledge.
Distinguishing between fact and opinion:

A fact is a statement that can be proven true or false. An opinion is an

expression of a person's feelings that cannot be proven. Opinions can be based
onfacts or emotions and sometimes they are meant to deliberately mislead
others.
Therefore, it is important to beaware of the author’s purpose and choice
of language. Sometimes, the author lets the facts speak for themselves.
Finding the main idea, important facts, and supporting details:

The main idea of a passage is often stated in a sentence within the

passage. It helps readers understand the most important idea about what is being
read. The other sentences of the passage include pieces of information that tell
more about the most important idea. These are called the supporting details.
Understanding the general idea of a text can be tricky for beginning, emerging, or
even established readers. It can require time, brain power, and hard work to
determine the main idea of a passage. Learning how to use the main idea and
supporting details is an essential piece to a reader’s success in comprehending
text.
You may wish to use the following terms:
 Topic – the subject, what the text is about
 Main idea – most important idea about the topic (usually a sentence)
 supporting details – bits of information used to support main idea